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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23661430">Fumbling for the Dark</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit'>runrarebit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Redirection [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Attempted Murder, Attempted Patricide, Dear Kylo the Gay is not of the Darkside, Hints at force sensitive hux, Insecurity, Internalized Homophobia, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren is a Mess, Kylo Ren is a melodramatic idiot, Kylo Ren not looking deeper than the surface, Kylo Ren not understanding consent, M/M, Oblivious Kylo Ren, Or possibly a smack around the ear, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Kylo Ren, Possibly Kylo needs a wild and misty moor to wander about broodingly, Self-Esteem Issues, Virgin Kylo Ren, dodgy self justifications, film canon only and then only maybe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:41:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,952</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23661430</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You know how I said I wasn't going to write anymore to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23601787"> A Series of Inelegant Solutions </a> ? Well I lied. Hopefully no more after this though, but who knows honestly. </p>
<p>Anyway, here we have a companion piece from Kylo's perspective; in which he is a melodramatic, brooding idiot.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren, kind of Kylo Ren/Rey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Redirection [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fumbling for the Dark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>TRIGGER WARNING: Does Kylo Ren not noticing that Hux didn't consent count as a trigger when Kylo Ren doesn't notice enough that it doesn't occur in the text and requires reading the other story to understand? Otherwise a hell of a lot of internalised homophobia, a lot of self-esteem issues, and a bit of violence. Please let me know if I missed any.</p>
<p>Thank you for reading the first fic, and for the comments and all the kudos, I really appreciate them! I really didn't mean to write this, but now I have so here we are. Stay safe out there!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His heart is thundering in his ears. His chest hurts. His breath is catching in his throat. This is as death. This is that moment, that transition. The step that separates the self from the Force— except, unlike those he knows— because he has been told, even though he has no memory of it— he killed, Luke’s other students, the ones he didn’t drag with him to Snoke— he is not going to fade away, become one with the Force. Nothing more than a ghost in the Light—</p>
<p>He is going to dissolve himself into the Dark.</p>
<p>No more fear. No more hesitation. No more guilt. No more regret—</p>
<p>No more seeking respite in Hux’s Dark tainted body. No more seeking certainty by abasing himself in <em>acts of the flesh. </em></p>
<p>Flesh—</p>
<p>Ever since he was little more than a child, ever since he was still at the temple with his uncle, the Dark whispering to him, making his eyes wander to the other boys and not where they should. His father’s words— the <em>one day you’ll meet a girl</em>, and the way Han Solo would look at his mother. His uncle’s words— the <em>one day you’ll meet <strong>someone</strong></em>, <em>someone special</em>— and all he could read of <em>knowing</em> in Luke’s eyes, all that <em>careful</em> lack of judgement. Like there was something wrong with him. Sick. <em>Diseased</em>.</p>
<p>Of course he was. It was the <em>Darkness</em>. It <em>is </em>the Darkness. The Darkness that’s made him seek out Hux, again and again—</p>
<p>All the questions and all the sense of wrong and all the <em>voices</em> vanish when he lays hands on that pale, alabastrine flesh. The Dark suffuses him, <em>corrupts</em> him— and he welcomes that corruption.</p>
<p>He had <em>tried</em>. Before Hux, long before he ever met the redhead, not long after he had gone to Snoke— he had gone to an irrelevant little planet, found an irrelevant little brothel, rented a girl— only a couple of years older than him and pretty. She had been so very pretty in that way that has never touched him—That he knows but doesn’t <em>feel</em>— But <em>naked</em>— he had looked at her and felt <em>nothing</em>.</p>
<p>Not disgust but no <em>desire</em>. It was like being expected to fuck a chair.</p>
<p>And the truth of it had shuddered through him and the terror had risen and tried to swallow him whole. He is <em>wrong</em>, he always has been—</p>
<p>And weak. Back then so weak all he did was wipe her memory before he fled. He should have killed her. The Dark would have wanted him to kill her, even if he couldn’t feel its nudgings through his fear.</p>
<p>The first time he saw Hux he thought <em>pretty</em> too. Only— <em>prettier than that girl</em>. Prettier than <em>any</em> girl— pale and thin and smooth.</p>
<p>At the temple he’d always been weakest for the wealthy boys, the upper-class boys, the <em>soft</em> boys, the boys who had never done a day’s labour in their lives. The smaller ones. The physically <em>weaker</em> ones. He’d liked fighting them, liked <em>pinning them beneath him</em>—</p>
<p>Luke had known. Of course Luke had known. Luke had tried to talk to him about them <em>liking him more if he was gentler</em>—</p>
<p>No one has ever liked him.</p>
<p>That’s ok though. He needs to be <em>feared</em>, not liked.</p>
<p>He thinks Hux fears him— has <em>contempt</em> for him, but also, yes, <em>fears</em> him— He wishes it felt like he thinks it should instead of it making him uneasy.</p>
<p>But the redhead always does make him uneasy. He always feels out of kilter, like even when Hux is pinned beneath him, pinioned on his cock, <em>Hux</em> is the one who has the power.</p>
<p>It’s probably because Hux is empty, Hux feels nothing— no, not quite nothing, but no deeper emotion than greed and malice and the lust for power. Hux has never warred with the Light. Hux was born of the Dark—</p>
<p>Snoke had seen his fascination with the redhead from the start, from the first moment he had laid eyes on all that milky skin and those pale, pretty eyes. Snoke had laughed at him. Encouraged him to look into the redhead’s mind, to see the vacuous wasteland within that lovely form.</p>
<p>He had done so under his master’s watchful eyes, the next time it had been both him and Hux reporting to the Sith. What he had found within was truly the rotten worm at the core of the tempting fruit— crawling. <em>Obsequious</em>. Jealous of Snoke’s regard—</p>
<p>Yes. Hux is nothing. An <em>Emptiness</em>. A way for him to relieve all the chaos that tears at him.</p>
<p>It does <em>tear</em> at him.</p>
<p>His doubts.</p>
<p>The way he cannot help but <em>miss</em> his uncle, his mother, his father— His father standing before him. The moment stretching out, the <em>end</em> coming—</p>
<p>Yes. Hux has been <em>useful</em>.</p>
<p>And all because of a moment, a weakness on his own behalf, when he’d reached out to <em>touch</em> that mind again in case he was wrong, in case there was something more there, and all he’d seen was <em>himself</em>. Or not <em>himself</em>. <strong>Kylo Ren</strong>, the self he <em>longs to be</em>.</p>
<p>Tells himself he is.</p>
<p>Strong, unbending, unwavering, <em>untouchable</em>—</p>
<p>And in Hux’s mind he had appeared to be everything he had ever wanted. Tall, imposing, <em>fearsome, </em>broad of shoulder and strong of body— and he had felt desire there. Not <em>intense</em> desire— and nothing like the love he had felt in the minds of his mother and father when they were together— but <em>desire</em>.</p>
<p>He had never felt desirable before.</p>
<p>It was <em>intoxicating</em>.</p>
<p>It had <em>haunted him</em>.</p>
<p>Preyed on his mind, made it so hard not to reach out and <em>touch</em>—</p>
<p>Until another moment of weakness, the awareness of Hux— so pretty in his rage, face and lips red, eyes flashing— the way the man had made him feel small and stupid. But Hux is the small one. Hux is so light, so easy to pick up, so easy to push face down over that conference table—</p>
<p>He hadn’t known what he was doing, what he was attempting, all he’d known was that he <em>wanted</em> and he wanted to make the burn of that want go away.</p>
<p>The next time, once he’d recovered from the first time, once he’d <em>come to terms</em> with what he’d done— once he’d acknowledged the almost peace, the way the hissing in his mind had quieted for days after he came back to himself, body pressing Hux’s to the table, the front of his trousers wet and slimy— that time he’d known what he’d wanted. What the other boys at his uncle’s temple had whispered about, <em>sneered</em> about. What his father had sometimes made jokes about even though it made his mother tell the man off.</p>
<p>Except he’d only known the things he’d heard, not how to do it properly. Hux had needed to correct him before he <em>hurt </em>the man, and even then he couldn’t make it good for the redhead. Hux didn’t <em>enjoy</em> it.</p>
<p>It had made him feel small and stupid, another thing to make him feel small and stupid. <em>Inadequate</em>. He knew Hux wanted him, but then he’d disappointed the man in the act itself—</p>
<p>But Hux had been able to teach him, the next time, the times after. How to please Hux. How to make him <em>come. </em>Hux wasn’t like he was, a <em>virgin</em>. No. Hux was a <em>whore</em> if even half of what he heard once he started listening to the rumours was true. Hux had—</p>
<p>He’d ripped the heads off a couple officers— low ranking, unimportant— when he heard them talking about Hux wanting control of the Stormtrooper Programme to search for men with big cocks— and he knew Hux liked that. The size of his cock. How <em>big</em> it is. Had <em>heard</em> it slip loud and appreciative from the man’s lips.</p>
<p>— It wasn’t true. He’d worked that out eventually. All it had taken was a bit of watching, monitoring thoughts— Hux never looked at a Stormtrooper appreciatively, and none of them had thoughts that suggested they’re ever actually <em>had</em> the redhead. True, plenty of them would have liked to, officers too— But if Hux had other lovers none of them were onboard the Finalizer or Starkiller Base.</p>
<p>He still doesn’t like it, the way some of the crew want Hux. He watches them watching the redhead, skims their thoughts— That they have the audacity to even <em>imagine </em>Hux’s naked body— Rage simmers in him and he encourages it, it helps him keep his focus, helps keep away the Light. So maybe he spends more time than he should near Hux, feeding that rage in the way others want the man. Even though the redhead isn’t his. <em>He</em> doesn’t want Hux, not to keep. The man is— sex and corruption and Darkness and peace and diversion, that’s all.</p>
<p>That he goes back again and again isn’t because he has <em>feelings</em> for the man— he is Kylo Ren. He doesn’t <em>need</em> feelings— Not <em>those</em> kind of feelings. Anger, hatred, desire— yes. Of course. But not, not— <em>those kind of feelings. </em>Because if he did have those kind of feelings they wouldn’t be Darkside enough— And yes, he does know the role <em>love</em> had in his Grandfather’s fall, but he has never understood it. It seems— <em>weak</em>. And Darth Vader was not weak.</p>
<p><em>He</em> is not weak either— or, at least, he will no longer be weak from this moment on.</p>
<p>He does not need Hux anymore either. No, not after this, not once he has proved his devotion to the Dark. All the things that bothered him will bother him no more and he will not have to seek sanctuary in the other’s silken flesh—</p>
<p>He really is very pretty, Hux. Pretty in the way only men are ever <em>really </em>pretty.</p>
<p><em>Argumentative</em> though, difficult, and no matter what the redhead may let him do in bed the redhead will never back down in public—</p>
<p>He had never known sex could be like that. It’s like something from a story, like something from the boastful stories of other Senators’ children, other students from the temple, who had never had even a quarter of the action they claimed when they sneered at him and called him <em>virgin</em>.  He would say it’s like something from a pornographic holo— but it’s not. Not really.</p>
<p>He’d tried watching a few to see if he could learn something to surprise Hux, to make it better for the redhead, and all that had led to was his hands on that long, slender neck, a <em>whirlwind </em>of confusing images all but shouted into his head, and the man breaking a hand trying to slap his face through his helmet. He still doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t think about it beyond the realisation you can’t trust what you see in holos and not everyone likes what everyone else likes.</p>
<p>He doesn’t think about why he’d wanted to be gentle with the redhead after that either, anymore than he thinks about gathering blankets and pillows to make the hard surface of the conference table softer, or the way he remembers the touches that Hux seems to enjoy the most, or the way he sometimes longs to strip himself out of all his armour, his robes, his underclothes, even his <em>helmet</em> and rub himself all over that soft skin— the way he wants to kiss Hux, sometimes, because some childish part of him still wonders what that must be like. Kiss Hux and maybe use his mouth somewhere else—</p>
<p>But Hux is <em>nothing</em>.</p>
<p>Anyway, even if he did ever want to go back to Hux after this moment, once he is full of purpose and no longer torn, conflicted, <em>weak</em>— Hux has seen his face. His <em>other</em> face—</p>
<p>Hux won’t want him, not now, not after looking at weak little <em>Ben</em>.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>He’s sure that was why Hux had looked so triumphant in front of Snoke, so contemptuous of him—</p>
<p>Hux is nothing to him. <em>Nothing</em>.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Anyway, there’s the <em>girl</em>. The Scavenger—</p>
<p>So unexpected, after all these years. A <em>girl</em>. A girl he looked at and <em>saw</em> and who has a <em>weight</em> in his mind in the way girls never have. She has the Force. She’s <em>strong</em>—</p>
<p>He thinks she’s pretty, for a girl. He’s sure if he asked <em>anyone</em> they’d say the same.</p>
<p>Pretty.</p>
<p>A pretty girl.</p>
<p>A <em>girl </em>he finds <em>pretty</em>—</p>
<p>Not as pretty as he finds Hux— but he rarely ever sees people as pretty as Hux. Pretty <em>enough</em>.</p>
<p>He wants to talk to her again—</p>
<p>He will, once this is done. They’ll talk and she’ll see him and <em>see </em>him— especially once he has shown her, once and for all, what a <em>disappointment</em> Han Solo is.</p>
<p>He reminds himself of where he is.</p>
<p>Before him stands his father. In his hands his Lightsaber. Above him he senses her, the Scavenger Girl—</p>
<p>He ignores the way his mind insists there’s another, familiar, presence just out of sight. A little pinprick of power— nothing in comparison to himself, or even the scavenger girl. Just the faint impression of an <em>other</em>. Neither Light nor Dark. Just the Force—</p>
<p>Tricks. For so many years his mind has played tricks on him.</p>
<p>He is about to make himself free of them all—</p>
<p>If only he could stop shaking. If only he can gather his <em>courage</em>—</p>
<p>Ever since <em>she</em> fought back he’s been trapped feeling so weak, so small and stupid and <em>lesser</em>, but he always feels lesser. <em>Inadequate</em>. He is sick and tired of feeling inadequate—</p>
<p>His fingers clench on the hilt of his Lightsabre, preparing to active it, preparing to—</p>
<p>For a second, just a split second, he’s sure he can sense Hux, except it can’t be, because Hux is Darkness, Hux is corruption, Hux is not that steely simple presence in the Force— and then it’s like a racing pod slams into his head and there’s nothing.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Everything throbs, whirls, twists around him, nauseating. He reaches for the Force to sooth his head but feels it slip, slip out of reach, his grasp on it strange and fumbling.</p>
<p>Nothing makes sense. There is light, he can feel it, <em>searing</em> in through his clenched shut eyes. He can’t move or, he <em>can</em>, but if he does he is going to throw up everywhere all over everything and possibly implode into a million, fiery, agonising suns.</p>
<p>Is he dead? If he’s dead why can he hear Captain Phasma? She sounds frustrated, ‘Stop fussing with your hair.’</p>
<p>‘I’m not fussing with my hair.’ He winces at the strident tone. He <em>must</em> be dead, that’s <em>Hux</em>. Hux sounding frazzled and nervous and not obsequious, contemptuous, furious, or lustful.</p>
<p>‘Your hair looks fine, stop fussing with it. <em>You</em> look fine,’ Captain Phasma insists— and the moment he gets a grip on the Force he is going to rip her head off so she can’t make any more noise, ever.</p>
<p>Noise is <em>terrible</em>.</p>
<p>‘What about the greatcoat? What about all of it? Of course it’s important to show my rank, but it is all very <em>First Order</em>— I doubt this bunch of degenerates has anything I could change into—’ Hux is actually <em>babbling</em>. What in the name of the Darkside is going on?</p>
<p>‘The uniform is fine, Armitage. You look like— You look like <em>you</em>. It’ll be fine—’ Phasma sighs.</p>
<p>‘You don’t <em>understand</em>, I’m going to meet <em>General Organa</em>—’ <em>What</em>?</p>
<p>He tries to lurch upright, and when that doesn’t work, settles for trying to pry open an eye. <em>What in all the Sith hells is going on</em>?</p>
<p>‘Armi—’</p>
<p>‘He’s waking up!’ Hux shouts, which almost knocks him back into the abyss.</p>
<p><em>His head</em>— and now Captain Phasma is shouting too. Why is everyone <em>shouting. </em>‘What?! No he’s not! Is he?! <em>How do you know?!</em>’ This is punishment, isn’t it? For Patricide.</p>
<p>‘<em>How do you think I know what Ren looks like when he’s regaining consciousness?!</em>’ Hux squawks, and it’s too much, it’s <em>unbearable</em>. He manages to move a hand, trying to do <em>something</em>. Shut everyone up. Turn off the light. <em>Anything ‘</em>Shit! The sedative— this better work. I bet it doesn’t work. I don’t care if he gets permanent brain damage, I should just shoot him again. <em>Why am I trusting our safety to the contents of a first aid kit that probably expired around the time of the Battle of Jakku</em>.’ A warm weight is suddenly straddling him, and he <em>knows </em>that weight, the feel of that lithe little body— his cock tries to twitch even as a new lurch of pain almost drags him into the nothingness. ‘Fuck this, Phasma. It’s all a <em>disaster</em>—’ a pain in the side of his neck. That warmth. A softening, a sweetening to the agony of everything—</p>
<p>He lets himself fall.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>He dreams about his parents. He has to be dreaming, because his father is dead and his mother is somewhere far away, and neither of them are in the same room as him while his mother says, ‘When I said I wanted you to bring him back, I didn’t really mean for you to knock him out and abduct him—’</p>
<p>‘That was not <em>my</em> idea,’ his father replies. ‘What are we going to do about him? And don’t say <em>lizards</em>. I’m sick of hearing the word <em>lizards. </em>Red’s right though, he is not going to be happy when he wakes up—’</p>
<p>‘Luke,’ his mother says, voice soft. ‘We’ve got the map. I’ll send Rey. He <em>has to </em>come back, he has to, when he hears—’</p>
<p>And it’s all so ridiculous, such a stupid, child’s dream— as if none of it ever happened. As if they still all <em>love </em>him— that it’s easy to fall back into the nothingness.</p>
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